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Oral history cataloging help



Hello -

        I've recently begun cataloging some Oral History projects and
interviews and need some help from fellow catalogers.
        In going through the Oral History Cataloging Manual put out by SAA,
it seems to me that it is the information within the interviews that is most
important.  However, the cataloger in Technical Services who is helping me
out with the MARC records is not certain we should push the format aside and
focus purely on the content (for the most part, that is - the records I've
been creating do include 300 fields indicating the format and number of
bound transcripts).  I'm forwarding along a message from him and wondered if
any of you who has been down this road will share with me what you did.

(BTW - His suggestion of creating 2 catalog records for each project does
not thrill me...please tell me there is a better way....)

Thanks in advance!

Dina

---------------------------------
Dina M. Kellams
Assistant Archivist
Indiana University Archives
dmkellam@indiana.edu


-----Original Message-----

Dina,
        After spending a couple of weeks working with Duncan, I thought that
I had figured out what to do with oral history records.  Now I'm more
confused than ever.  I do wish that the Oral History Cataloging Manual
included fixed fields.  Duncan is cataloging the same sort of things that
you are.  Finally, we decided that these are not mixed materials; they are
manifestations of the same work.  He is using Type t for the transcripts and
including the sound tape (cassettes, or whatever) info in a 530, but the
examples in the Manual clearly show examples of 300s as on the record for
the Fortune family.  Now I'm thinking that the format for the Archives
record should be for sound recordings (Type: i) since that is the original
manifestation.  Or there might be two separate records: one for each format
with a 530 on each record identifying the availability of additional
physical forms.  After all, a book and a microform of that book would
require two separate records.  There are some records in OCLC (e.g.,
#40218512) that use Type: i and include transcripts as supplementary
material in $e of the 300.  I'm still trying to figure out the answer.  Do
you know any oral history catalogers at other institutions whom you might
contact?  Stay tuned.  This will probably not be resolved before I go to
France; I'll be gone Nov. 20-29.
        Marty
P.S. Have you noticed some of the errors in Table 2 (p. 102) in the Oral ...
Manual?  The rules for the 530, 533, 535 fields are one digit off--i.e., the
rule for the 530 should be 2.7B5, not 2.7B4, etc.  (There may be other
errors; these are just the three I looked at.)

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